Joseph Priestly, not to be confused with Jason Priestly, was an 18th century theologian, natural philosopher, chemist, educator and political theorist.Though the discovery of “soda water” had little scientific value, Priestly called it his “happiest discovery”.

So how did the discovery come about? It was largely due to the fact that in 1767 he: 1) got a new job and 2) moved.

For starters, by getting a new job as a minister he had a lot more free time (to experiment and make discoveries) compared to when he was a teacher. But what was more important was the fact that when he moved to his new town, the official minister’s home was not ready. As a result, he stayed at another house which happened to be located beside a brewery.

Due to his scientific curiosity, it wasn’t long before he began conducting experiments in the brewery. He noticed that the vats of fermenting liquid emitted what he called “fixed” or “mephitic” air (what we call carbon dioxide), and he discovered that if he poured water between two cups over top of the vats, the water became suffused with the “fixed air” and acquired a “fizz”. Within days Priestly was discussing this new invention with colleagues and published a pamphlet describing it: Directions for impregnating water with fixed air, in order to communicate to it the peculiar spirit and virtues of Pyrmont water, and other mineral waters of a similar nature.

Here’s a picture of Priestly’s soda water apparatus:

Priestly was a “compulsive sharer” and he believed in the circulation and dissemination of ideas. So instead of protecting his invention and patenting it, he shared it immediately with everyone. Apparently the notion of withholding information for personal gain was unimaginable to someone like Priestly. However, as a result of this “compulsive sharing”, a man by the name of Johann Schweppes would eventually patent a method of carbonating water in 1783 and Priestly would forever be dependent on financial patrons.

I learned about this fact from: Johnson, Steven. The Invention of Air A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America. River Head Books, New York: 2008. [By the way, a great read, I highly recommend it]

According to the second version of the story, the ice cream sundae was invented in Ithaca, New York by a man named Chester Platt. Platt owned a drug store, which in those days often had a lunch counter and soda fountain. As the story goes, on a Sunday in 1893 he served a dish of vanilla ice cream with cherry syrup and a candied cherry to Reverend John Scott. In honour of the day, the Reverend named it a “Sunday”.

Apparently there’s debate over the invention of the ice cream sundae. For the next three days, each post will be a different version of that story. First, I’ll share my favourite…

In the 1890s many states had “blue laws” which required that Sunday was a day of worship. In the town of Evanston, Illinois there was a law specifically prohibiting the sale of soda water, and thus preventing the sale of ice cream sodas. So to evade the law, they served a soda-less soda, consisting of ice cream and syrup, which came to be known as the Sunday soda. To avoid objections to the blasphemous reference to the Sabbath, “sunday” was eventually re-spelled “sundae”.